BIY as a path to DIWM (Part 2)

In part one of this blog post, we established the opportunity for BIY and how it can help make your sales people more successful. We left off last week talking about that despite a need to reduce cost, sales people are not obsolete. In part 2, we’ll look more at how salespeople can succeed with BIY and enable a path to do-it-with-me (DIWM).

Sales success in the age of BIY 

Even though changing demographics and consumer demands have changed today’s SMB buyer’s expectations for how they research and choose software and services, I believe that the future is bright for sales folks. Product- and marketing-qualified leads will increase conversion rates and make sales reps more effective in who they target (sales enablement and automation tools will make mundane obsolete) and allowing reps to focus their time. Ultimately, these data-driven buying signals will help sales reps approach prospects with the right message at the right time. 

The buy-it-yourself/product-led growth model actually helps sales reps be more successful - prospects who have already engaged with the product or have already experienced the value of your offering while showing buying intent have a much higher rate of conversion. Instead of the death of the sales person, it’s rather an evolution of the sales role into an advisory-focused and product-led sale - with a focus on driving value post-sale. While I’ve focused on the opportunity of BIY for sales - self procurement will indefinitely have an impact not only on acquisition but also on post-sales service and fulfillment.

The path to DIWM 

BIY plays strongly into the freemium or try-before-you-buy culture; BUT just because you buy and/or try online - does not mean that a small business owner has the time or skills to DIY. And this undeniable fact is the basis for our thesis that BIY is an excellent path to the do-it-with-me (DIWM) fulfillment model.

By combining a BIY sales strategy with a DIWM fulfillment approach, SMBs can better engage with your products, giving them a sense of control and transparency. At the same time, you can support the product engagement with relevant advice and value-added upsells to grow your SMB clients and service them when they need help. This was also highlighted in the BIY Future report by our CEO - Louise Lachmann noted: “Offering an upgrade path to service-based offerings is… paramount for retention and overall growth of your customer base.” And I think the key takeaways is that digital service providers cannot rely on a BIY sales strategy alone, but need to consider what post-sale services can extend the customer lifetime value and ultimately drive down the cost of customer acquisition. 

Bridging the path from BIY to DIWM 

So while BIY is an approach for bringing in new customers, digital service providers need to continue focusing their efforts on a collaborative DIWM approach to boost engagement, retention and ultimately revenue per user. The good news? 81% of SMB sellers said that they already are offering service to their SMB clients. What’s more, our prior research has shown that 35% of SMBs have said they’d be willing to upgrade to a service-based offering if the free/low tier price option doesn’t meet their needs (New Small Business SaaS Customer, 2018).

So how do you as a digital service provider tackle BIY. We believe there are three key ways to get started with a BIY sales channel: 

• #1 Let small businesses BIY your existing DIWM product offerings 
• #2 Add a DIY solution to broaden your SMB customer base, and offer upgrades to DIWM when they need more help 
• #3 Implement a product-led growth strategy with freemium/try-before-you-buy to drive value upfront, with upgrades to DIWM when more service and/or functionality is needed 

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Want to learn more? Check out our dedicated BIY page and reach out to your Partner Success Manager or schedule a demo with our team.